Behaviour when Deep Linking to Viva Engage Community Post in Teams Mobile App

Question

We use Viva Engage embedded within Teams. The majority of our users access the Teams app on mobile devices (ioS and Android).

When a user views a Community via the Viva Engage Teams app it opens in the latest version of the Viva Engage app within Teams as you would expect and looks likes this:

When a user clicks on a Teams Activity Notification about a Viva Engage post (e.g. an announcement or a mention) it opens the post on its own in the latest version of the Viva Engage app within Teams as you would expect and looks likes this:

However, when we create a deep link to a Viva Engage community post (using the method described here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/engage/deeplinks#deep-link-to-a-viva-engage-entity , using the teams.microsoft.com/l/entity... version to link to a conversation thread) and share this link in Teams (e.g. in a Teams Activity notification) the result is different. The post opens in what appears to be the mobile browser version of Viva Engage (but still opening within Teams) or the old Teams Viva Engage app from about a year ago before it was updated to the above version. It looks like this:

This is very confusing for many of our users because it looks completely different, with a whole separate menu at the top that behaves differently to the Teams Viva Engage app they are used to.

So my question is, is there a way around this or something we can change/set so that Viva Engage deep links in Teams mobile app will open in the correct version of Teams Viva Engage App? Thanks.

Answer 1

Deep links to Viva Engage entities in Teams are currently defined to open the web-style Viva Engage experience, not the newer embedded Communities experience in the Teams mobile client. The documented deep-link formats

https://aka.ms/VivaEngage/Launch?context=%7B%22subEntityId%22:%22type=custom,data=<EntityType>:<EntityId>%22%7D
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/entity/db5e5970-212f-477f-a3fc-2227dc7782bf/vivaengage?context=%7B%22subEntityId%22:%22type=custom,data=<EntityType>:<EntityId>%22%7D

are the supported way to deep-link to a post (thread), community (group), storyline (user), or campaign (campaign). These links are designed to open the entity in Viva Engage in Teams, but the exact surface (modern in-app experience vs. web-style view) is controlled by the client and service and cannot be overridden by configuration.

There is no documented setting or alternative URL pattern that forces those entity deep links to open in the newer Communities experience in the Teams mobile app. The only supported behavior that consistently opens the modern in-app experience on mobile is:

• Navigating to Viva Engage/Communities directly in Teams using the app entry points, or
• Using the built-in Teams notifications generated by Viva Engage (for announcements, mentions, etc.), which already deep-link into the modern view.

For custom notifications or links, the behavior seen—opening in the web-style Viva Engage view inside Teams—is expected with the current deep-link implementation and cannot be changed via admin or client settings.

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References:

• Deep linking into Viva Engage
• Manage Viva Engage experiences in Microsoft Teams